


Answers Yet to Come

by Independence1776



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game), Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, order 66 never happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24961555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Independence1776/pseuds/Independence1776
Summary: A month after the war ends, Cal runs into Caleb on one of the not-quite-forbidden lower levels of the Jedi Temple.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus & Cal Kestis
Comments: 14
Kudos: 115





	Answers Yet to Come

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for [JediJune](https://jedijune.tumblr.com/). It touches on the compassion prompt, but wasn't really written to fit any of the prompts.

Cal paused. He’d thought he was alone down here, not quite in the forbidden lower levels and not quite in the upper levels, but that was definitely a sniffle. He turned the corner and held up his lightsaber to better illuminate the hallway, which had a dim light every fifty meters or so. Caleb sat on the tile floor against the wall a short way down, knees hugging his chest and arms resting on top of them. His eyes were clearly red, though he wasn’t actively crying anymore.

Cal shut his lightsaber off and sat down next to him. “What’s wrong?” Though he could guess. It was the same reason he’d come down here alone, no matter the lecture Master Tapal would give him if he was caught.

“Nothing.”

“You sure about that?” Caleb gave a very firm nod. “Because my friends don’t really understand me anymore, either.”

“You at least talked during the war,” Caleb said, side-eying him.

“Sometimes,” Cal said. “Not as often as you’re probably assuming.” He paused. “Wait, they didn’t talk to you at all?”

Caleb shook his head, braid bouncing off his brown tabard-vest. “Just once, briefly, when Master Billaba was in bacta. There really wasn’t time otherwise. We went from Kardoa to Mygeeto to Kaller. And… Sammo thought I wasn’t safe with Master Billaba and Tai was jealous. They both thought I was too young to be a Padawan.”

“I’m even younger than you.” Cal tugged his own braid. “You’re already fourteen. I’m still thirteen. Though you were thirteen when you were chosen, right?”

“Yeah. I turned fourteen a week before the war ended.”

With an ending that none of them had foreseen. Who would have guessed that Palpatine was a Sith Lord-- and that Anakin Skywalker would be the one to kill him? No one really knew what to do with Master Skywalker, either: savior of the galaxy but also assassin of the two galactic leaders. But now it was widely known both of them were Sith Lords who manufactured and controlled the war, which complicated matters further. Master Skywalker was imprisoned in the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center until some sort of justice could be worked out. Cal would bet that Caleb knew more about that problem than he did, given Master Billaba’s position on the High Council, but that wasn’t something to bring up now.

Cal said, “So your friends still aren’t talking to you? It’s been a month since we were discharged.” His friends tried, but it wasn’t enough sometimes. It was easier to be alone than deal with it for the hundredth time.

Caleb leaned his head against the wall. “They _do_ talk to me. They don’t get it, though, not really. But I don’t have any other friends here. I’m annoying and I ask too many questions.”

That wasn’t much of a reason, not anymore. “We can be friends, if you want. I know what the battlefield is like and what it’s like to have friends die. Even the Masters are treating us differently than pretty much everyone else our age.”

“Yeah. Master Depa’s going to kill me if I skip the weekly group counseling session for Padawans that starts tomorrow. But I don’t see why I have to go. I don’t have nightmares or other problems.”

“Same reason I do,” Cal said with forced good humor. “We’re both young and they want to make sure we’re okay.”

Caleb snorted. “I’d be more okay if my friends weren’t so determined to…” He wiped his eyes on a sleeve. “I _know_ it’s not their fault. We’ve grown apart. We kinda always knew we would. I just didn’t expect it to be so soon.”

“Yeah,” Cal said, shifting so their shoulders touched. “The war changed us and it changed the Order. I think our friends were lucky not having to fight. They’re going to have proper apprenticeships, not what we had and have.”

“Survival training and not even the normal kind. We’re Jedi, not soldiers. Yet soldiering is what we know best. Master Depa said she thought the Jedi shouldn’t have taken military roles. I’m beginning to think she was right.”

“It wasn’t like the Senate gave us a choice.”

“The Grand Army of the Republic, created to kill the Jedi. _Palpatine_ gave us no choice.” Caleb thumped his head against the wall. “At least the chips are being removed and the clones given personhood rights. But it’ll take a long time to de-chip millions of people. And we have a responsibility to the clones, to help them adjust to non-war life. Except we don’t actually know how to do that for ourselves, much less anyone else! And we have to heal the Order and rebuild the public’s trust in us and… and…”

“Yeah, and how is a Padawan supposed to do all of that?”

Caleb blinked. “Uh, we’re not? Well, you’re not. I’m a Council Padawan; where Depa goes, I go. So I’m a representative.”

“Yeah-- of what it cost the Order to fight,” Cal shot back. “Let people be discomfited by you and by the clones’ ages and by everything they decided to give up in the name of security.” Quieter, he said, “That’s the entire problem. The Separatists had some valid points underneath the enflamed rhetoric and the Senate doesn’t want to admit to them because they don’t want to acknowledge any of it because too many people are afraid it also means brushing over the Separatists’ war crimes. But it _doesn’t_. As much as I think the Order should get involved--”

“The Separatists want nothing to do with us.” Caleb sighed. “The galaxy doesn’t trust the Order anymore _because_ we fought and had to deal with the war rather than our traditional roles as peacekeepers and going after criminal syndicates like the Pykes. But what were we supposed to do instead, sit out and have even more people die? That would have turned everyone against us almost immediately. Plus, Palpatine stoked the rumors about us wanting power, which too many people still believe.”

“Yeah.” They sat in silence for a couple of breaths before Cal continued, “It’s not like I have the answers, either.”

“But both of you better have answers to _my_ question of why you’re down here,” Master Tapal said as he stepped around the corner.

“Oops,” Caleb muttered.

Cal closed his eyes. They were definitely in for a lecture.


End file.
